Policemen were among anti-Sikh rioters in 1984: Witness

NEW DELHI: A woman, who lost five of her family members in 1984 anti-Sikh riots, today claimed before a Delhi court trying Congress leader Sajjan Kumar and others that she did not go to the police station after the incident as policemen were among the rioters.

"I did not want to go the police station because the police officials were among the rioters," Jagdish Kaur told Additional Sessions Judge Sunita Gupta.

Recording her statement before the court, she said "I had lost faith in everybody and therefore I did not approach the Chief Minister, Home Minister or any other Minister in Punjab or any other authority."

To a question posed by counsel S A Hashmi, appearing for accused Balwan Khokhar, nephew of Sajjan Kumar, the 69-year-old witness said she came to know about CBI only when they approached her for recording her statement.

The witness, during her cross examination, claimed she saw the mob on the fateful day killing and burning alive of her three brothers Narender Pal, Raghuvinder Singh and Kuldeep Singh, which she had not recorded in her affidavit before different Commissions.

Earlier, before the court could resume proceedings relating to cross examination of witness, senior advocate R S Cheema, appearing for CBI, contended the affidavits and statements filed by the witnesses before Commissions set up under the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952, could not be used for the purpose of contradicting the testimony of the witnesses.

The arguments of CBI's advocate Cheema was opposed by the counsel for the accused who argued that the statements made before Nanawati and Rangnath Mishra Commissions formed the very basis for registration of the FIR and CBI had relied on those versions.

The court is conducting the trial against Kumar and others on a day-to-day basis.

Kaur had on July 3 identified Kumar and his nephew Khokkar, and other accused Girdhari Lal and Captain Bhagmal as accomplices who had allegedly instigated mobs during the 1984 carnage.

Kaur's family members were killed in the riots that had followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.

The cross examination of Kaur remained inconclusive and would resume on July 15.

CBI had filed two chargesheets against Kumar and others on January 13 in the riots cases registered in 2005 on the recommendation of Justice G T Nanavati Commission which inquired into the sequence of events leading to the riots.